Immigration Ruling Puts Families at Risk

Today’s ruling by the Supreme Court means U.S. born children will continue to live in fear of being separated from their parents or being forced to leave the only homes they’ve known. The decision upholds a lower court injunction against Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA) and expanded Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).

“On a very real level, this puts children who live right here in our communities at risk,” says Kathy Differding, manager of the Immigration & Citizenship division of California Human Development (CHD). “Without DAPA, it’s not unthinkable or uncommon for a child to come home from school to learn that his or her parent has been detained for removal from the U.S. These families must then decide whether to uproot their children from their homeland…or leave them behind. As you can imagine, it’s excruciating.”

Differding has a list of 80 people who are eligible for DAPA in CHD’s Santa Rosa, California region alone and says that’s just a sliver of the number of people affected. CHD put its DAPA efforts on hold pending the Supreme Court decision.

“This is an extremely unfortunate ruling that will completely change the course of millions of lives and saddest of all are the children… who were born here and who are entitled to all of the opportunities that come with U.S. Citizenship,” Differding adds.

In December, California Human Development received grant funding to expand its DACA outreach and services, including free services for many applicants. DACA provides legal status to eligible young adult immigrants. This work is not affected by the Supreme Court ruling and CHD’s immigration experts are continuing these efforts in earnest. For more information call 707.523.1155.